Within the past two decades, federal and state governments have increased the frequency, number, and importance of standardized tests in elementary and secondary American schools. These tests are characterized by recognition-based frameworks that privilege "best" or "correct" answers, processes, and understandings which remain…

Accurate and rapid word recognition requires highly-specified phonological, orthographic, and semantic word-specific representations. It has been established that children acquire these representations through phonological decoding in a process known as orthographic learning. Studies examining orthographic learning and its predictors have thus far…

The purpose of this collaborative action research was to understand how science educators can negotiate the tension between integrating formative assessment (FA) for students' learning and meeting the need for standardized summative assessment (testing) from a critical perspective. Using formative assessment in the era of accountability testing…

Providing a meaningful and experiential learning environment for all students has long created a concern for alternate ways to teach students who are reportedly demonstrating non-mastery on state standardized assessments. As the benchmark for showing successful academic achievement increases, so does the need for discovering effective ways for…

The purpose of this study was to explore upper elementary reading classes in a low socio-economic area to determine the effects frequent praise, both academically and socially, have on the zone of proximal development in reading (ZPD[subscript RL], Renaissance Learning, 2006). A causal-comparative study was utilized by observing two groups of…

The assimilation and synthesis of knowledge is essential for students to be successful in chemistry, yet not all students synthesize knowledge as intended. The study used the Learning Preference Checklist to classify students into one of three learning modalities--visual, auditory, or kinesthetic (VAK). It also used the Kolb Learning Style…